“Migration from Central America today is primarily the result of U.S. policies that have exacerbated violence, poverty, food insecurity and climate change. Our immigration laws, one-sided trade deals, and decades of military intervention have lt hundreds of thousands of Central Americans with no choice — they must flee their homes to save their lives and the lives of their families.”
Views: 63
I’m sure the changes Sherman-Stokes proposes would improve things. But calling them the “root cause” seems to be largely unjustified. Migration from Central America to the US is driven by what most migration is driven by, the tremendously better economic prospects in the US. The core problem is, as Jonah Goldberg noted,
People ask, “Why is there poverty in the world?” It is a silly
question. Poverty is the default human condition. We are born naked
and penniless, bereft of skills or possessions. The interesting
question isn’t, “Why is there poverty?” It’s, “Why is there wealth?”
Or: “Why is there prosperity here but not there?”
After all, unless they’re in the middle of a particularly ugly war or a particularly bad drought, the peasants of Central America are likely to have the highest income (in real terms) that they’ve had since forever. And yet, the GDP per capita of Central America is something like 1/10 that of the US.
I suppose you could blame the lack of industrialization in Central America on the US in some way, but there’s not much evidence that being free of malign foreign influences is a major factor in prosperity. Britain became by far the richest country in the world while fighting innumerable wars around the globe … at the same time that China’s relative position fell far behind, despite being largely insulated from any invaders.